Shotlist

"This was not a very bright move on their part and I don't know many Americans who would think it was."

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AP TELEVISION

Havana, Cuba - 3 April 2014

3. Wide of man talking on mobile phone

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Washington DC, USA - 3 April 2014

4. SOUNDBITE (English) Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat, Vermont:

"(About USAID, US Agency of International Development, asking the Senate for permission) I know they said we were notified. We were notified in the most oblique way that nobody could understand it. (About the hearing Leahy is holding on Tuesday, 8 April with USAID director Rajiv Shah about USAID's annual budget) I'm going to ask why, well, two basic questions. Why weren't we specifically told about this if you're asking us for money? And secondly, whose bright idea was this anyway?"

"Instead we have something that now puts these young Cubans who didn't know who they were dealing with at risk, because it would be so easy to go back and find out just who they communicated with."

7. Wide of Congressman Joe Garcia walking in the Cannon Rotunda in US Capitol

8. SOUNDBITE (English) Congressman Joe Garcia, Democrat, Florida:

"I think what we should be shocked about is that the Cubans have no access to Facebook or Twitter, as opposed to the US government trying to promote discourse which I think is a very good thing. It promotes the values which we as a country espouse, which is democracy, dissent, communication, conversation and that's what this programme was trying to do."

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FILE: Tbilisi, Georgia - August 2008

9. Wide of workers loading USAID boxes

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Washington DC - 3 April 2014

10. SOUNDBITE (English) Congressman Joe Garcia, Democrat, Florida:

"I wish I could take credit for this programme. It wasn't my idea, but it falls in line with everything I think we should be doing, which is promoting conversation, debate, openness, democracy, and that's what this programme was doing."

11. Wide of White House Spokesman Jay Carney walking to podium

12. SOUNDBITE (English) Jay Carney, White House Spokesman:

"When you have a programme like that in a non-permissive environment, i.e. a place like Cuba, you're discrete about how you implement it so that you protect the practitioners, but that does not make it covert."

DOS TV

13. US State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf walks to podium

14. SOUNDBITE (English) Marie Harf, State Department Spokeswoman:

"We believe that the Cuban people need platforms like this to use themselves, to decide what their future will look like."

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FILE: Tbilisi, Georgia - August 2008

15. Close of of worker loading USAID boxes

Storyline

The Obama administration sought to defend its creation of a 'Twitter-like' Cuban communications network on Thursday, as senior Democrats on congressional intelligence and judiciary committees say they knew nothing about the project.

The US government said early on Thursday that it had disclosed the ZunZuneo initiative to Congress, but hours later the narrative had shifted to say that the administration had offered to discuss funding for it with the congressional committees that approve federal programmes and budgets.

One Senator, and Chairman of the Senate Appropriations State Department and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, Patrick Leahy, has described ZunZuneo as "dumb, dumb, dumb".

"This was not a very bright move on their part and I don't know many Americans who would think it was," he told the Associated Press.

ZunZuneo's organisers wanted the social network to grow slowly to avoid detection by the Cuban government.

Eventually, documents and interviews reveal, they hoped the network would reach critical mass so that dissidents could organise "smart mobs" - mass gatherings called at a moment's notice - that could trigger political demonstrations, or "renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society."

Yet its users were neither aware it was created by a US agency with ties to the State Department, nor that US contractors were gathering personal data about them, in the hope that the information might be used someday for political purposes.

USAID (US Agency of International Development)'s top official, Rajiv Shah, is scheduled to testify on Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations State Department and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, on the agency's budget.

"I'm going to ask why, well two basic questions. Why weren't we specifically told about this if you're asking us for money? And secondly, whose bright idea was this anyway?" Said Subcommittee Chairman Leahy.

Congressman Joe Garcia, also a Democrat, spoke out in support of the programme, saying "it falls in line with what I think we should be doing, which is promoting conversation, debate, openness, democracy, and that's what this programme was doing."

It is unclear whether the scheme was legal under US law, which requires written authorisation of covert action by the President as well as congressional notification.

White House Spokesman Jay Carney said he was not aware of individuals in the White House who had known about the programme.

Adding that in "a place like Cuba, you're discrete about how you implement it so that you protect the practitioners, but that does not make it covert."

"We believe that the Cuban people need platforms like this (ZunZuneo) to use themselves, to decide what their future will look like," said State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf.

Harf described the programme as "discreet" but said it was in no way classified or covert.

Harf also said the project did not rise to a level that required the Secretary of State to be notified.

Neither former US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton nor John Kerry, the current occupant of the office, was aware of ZunZuneo, she said.